My favorite PC game isn’t a complex strategy title or first-person shooter tailor-made for the platform. It’s Game Dev Tycoon, a casual business sim where players create a garage-based game studio and turn it into a full-blown corporation.
It was simple, but extremely addicting to my teenage brain, and I’ve dumped hundreds of hours into it since it was released over a decade ago. A review of Game Dev Tycoon is even what got me my first job writing about games. As such, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the next title, Tavern Keeper, from its developer, Greenheart Games.
Ahead of an early access release later this year, Tavern Keeper finally got its first public demo on Steam during this week’s SimFest, which puts a spotlight on a variety of released and upcoming simulation titles on Steam. I went hands-on with this demo early, and while no game can match the nostalgia I have for Game Dev Tycoon, Tavern Keeper is a unique follow-up that I can see myself losing even more time to. If you play just one thing during 2024’s SimFest on Steam, make it Tavern Keeper.
While Game Dev Tycoon was about building a video game company from scratch, Tavern Keeper is a much more fantastical game about starting up and running a medieval tavern. It’s definitely more complex than Game Dev Tycoon, which teeters on being an idle game at times, but Tavern Keeper is a competent, well-made business sim to rival the likes of Two Point Campus.
The demo gives players control of a tavern in Halflington. After the narrator introduces the basic controls and various objects players can interact with, a hero arrives. Players can select patrons with a book above their heads to speak with them. This hero asks the player if they have a quest for him. I told him that his quest was to sit quietly in the tavern and enjoy a drink, which he was surprisingly open to.
After that, the demo transported me to a rickety tavern in a swamp and asked me to start building it up. From there, I could start building, with my first action being to place a taproom to get beer from and hire staffers, who each have difficult skill specialties and daily wages. I bought drinks from a merchant, assigned them to a tap, and opened the tavern for business. From here, Tavern Keeper plays out as most simulation games of its ilk do.
I watched as my staffers served patrons who came in and reacted to dynamic events, which are told through storybooks like the one with the hero at the Halflington tavern. I also built up the tavern by creating storerooms and further customizing the décor of my dinky bar. Tavern Keeper gives players a lot of control when it comes to decorating the tavern with even the smallest of objects (I put axes on every wooden surface in my tavern).
That’s about it for the demo. Tavern Keeper definitely isn’t the most complex business sim out there, but Greenheart Games once again demonstrates that it knows how to make what can be an intimidating genre approachable. The main goal of Tavern Keeper is clearly to have fun and laugh as hilarious events happen to the orcs, humans, and halflings who visit the tavern. If you have any doubts about that, the demo ends by letting players blow up their tavern after three simulated days. You could also choose not to do that, but I couldn’t resist. While Greenheart Games hasn’t put out another game since Game Dev Tycoon, Tavern Keeper seems to be worth the wait. I can’t wait to play more when the game enters early access.
Tavern Keeper will enter early access later this year.